Paul also thinks they need a new bassist. Stuart’s playing has improved, but he doesn’t take the music seriously. “Our band would be great,” Paul says, “but with him on bass there was always something holding us back.”

Paul’s never really liked Stu, John knows, and it’s not helped now by jealousy over Stu’s stunningly gorgeous new photographer girlfriend, Astrid Kirchherr. Astrid and her friend Klaus Voormann, two young, arty Germans, have recently befriended the band. Truth be told, John’s a bit peeved Astrid hasn’t fallen in love with him.

Not that Paul’s wrong about Stu. “The guy really couldn’t play bass to save his life,” says Tony Sheridan, a British rocker considered “the guv’nor” of the Hamburg scene. “He was 90 percent image, and the most you want is 50 percent because the other 50 percent must be a musical talent.”

They didn’t have to worry about Stu, though, as he’s made it clear he plans on quitting the group. He’s going to ask Astrid to marry him.

“Well, we’ve got to do something about Pete,” Paul continues. “His drumming just isn’t cutting it.”

If only they could use Ringo.

They’ve been spending a lot of time with Ringo, the drummer for Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, drinking, getting to know him. The drummer George had thought “looked the nasty one” when they first met “turned out to be Ringo, the nicest of them all.”

“We liked his style,” John agrees, “but we’d only just got the other drummer so we couldn’t do anything about it.”

Instead, John tells the band that he’s arranged a higher-paying gig—at the Top Ten Club.

Paul and George light up with excitement. The Top Ten is a real rock club, not a bar offering music—and it has a phenomenal sound system. They’ve visited it a few times and even played there with Tony Sheridan.

On November 28, Stu makes it official: he and Astrid have exchanged rings. They’re engaged.

Bruno Koschmider calls them all into his office. He’s gotten wind of John’s Top Ten plan.

His interpreter does all the talking. “Sign this,” he says, handing them each an agreement stating that the Beatles will not play any other Hamburg club in December.

John refuses, tossing the paper on the man’s desk.

Concurrently, it seems, the German authorities have discovered that seventeen-year-old George is too young to qualify for a proper work permit, so he’s being deported immediately. He stays up the whole night, teaching his guitar part to John. “I felt terrible,” recalls George. “I had visions of our band staying on there with me stuck in Liverpool, and that would be it.”